MOONF.Y] EAKI.V nWKLLING-PLACES 21 



of violt'iict'. hut wore evidently tlie accuimilatioii of lontjf yeurs from 

 the neiifhboriiig Indian town. The distinguished \vrit(!r adds: "Hut 

 on whatever occasion they may have been made, they are of consider- 

 able notoriety amony- the Indians: for a party passinir. about thirty 

 years ago fi. e.. about 1750J, throuoli the part of the country where 

 this barrow is. went throuofh the woods directly to it without any 

 instructions or enijuiry, and haviny- staid about it some time, with 

 expressions which were construed to be those of sorrow, they returned 

 to the high road, which they had left about half a dozen miles to pay 

 this visit, and pursued their jo\irney."' Although the trilie is not 

 named, the Indians were probably Cherolvee. as no other southern 

 Indians were then accustomed to range in that section. As serving to 

 corroboi'ate this opinion we have the statement of a prominent Cher- 

 okee chief, given to Schoolcraft in 1846, that acccording to their tradi- 

 tion his people had formerly lived at the Peaks of Otter, in Virginia, 

 a noted landmark of the Hlue ridge, near the point where Staunton 

 river breaks through the mountains.' 



From a careful sifting of the evidence Haywood concludes that the 

 authors of the most ancient remains in Tennessee had spread over that 

 region from the south and southwest at a very early period, but that 

 the later occupants, the Cherokee, had entered it from the noitii and 

 northeast in comparatively I'ecent times, overrunning and exterminat- 

 ing the aborigines. He declares that the historical fact seems to be 

 established that the Cherokee entered the country from Virginia, mak- 

 ing temporary settlements upon New river and the upper Holston. 

 until, under the continued hostile pressure from the north, they were 

 again forced to remove farther to the south, fixing themselves upon the 

 Little Tennessee, in what afterward became known as the middle towns. 

 By a leading mixed blood of the tribe he was informed that they had 

 made their first settlements within their modern home territory upon 

 Nolichucky river, and that, having lived there for a long period, they 

 could give no defiiute account of an earlier location. Echota. their 

 capital and peace town. '" claimed to be the eldest brother in the nation,''' 

 and the claim was genersilly acknowledged.'' In confirmation of the 

 .statement as to an early occupancy of the upper Holston region, it uiav 

 be noted that '" WataugaOld Fields," now Klizabethtown, were so called 

 from the fact that when the first white settlement within the present 

 state of Tennessee was begun there, so early as 17(39. the bottom lands 

 were found to contain graves and other numerous ancient remains of a 

 former Indian town which tradition ascribed to the Cheroke(>. whose 

 nearest settlements were then many miles to the southward. 



While the Cherokee chiimed to have built the mounds on the uj)pei- 



^ Jefferson, Thomas. Notes on Virginia, pp, 13(>-i;J7: ed. Boston, 1S02. 



sSc'liooloraft.Notos on tho Iroquois, p. 1()3, 1847. 



3 Haywood, Natural and Aboriginal History of Tennes.see, pp. 23:J. 2:i0. 269. 1S23. 



